Thursday 17 April 2008

Wagaya no Oinari-sama - Episode 1

The opening episode of Wagaya no Oinari-sama certainly didn't waste much time getting to the point, so neither will I - We've already seen cat girls and fox girls so far this season, now it's the turn of a wolf girl... Or rather, a wolf spirit. When two brothers, Tooru and Noburu Takagami are called to see their grandmother, they think she's dying, when in reality this is just a ploy to summon them, for the younger brother Tooru is in fact the subject of an evil spirit's attention. To fight off this demon, the family require the help of their guardian spirit, the aforementioned fox known as Kuugen who was previously sealed away after a spate of unruly behaviour.

What follows is really just a quick and easy way to set the scene for what looks set to be a 'fish out of water' series from here on in, only with the occasional bit of spirit fighting for good measure. This keenness to get to the meat of the story after a single episode leaves this opener looking a little rushed, and seeing as both the flow and tone of the series (this episode took itself far too seriously for its first half) look likely to change from here on in I wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to whether it'll improve or otherwise. This first episode was average in almost every way, from the animation through to the dialogue (something that is painfully obvious if we compare, as we are want to do, with our last wolf-spirit outing in the form of Spice and Wolf), so it'll need to work a lot harder to hold my attention. It has, much like Spice and Wolf, come from a series of well-received light novels though, so hopefully there is more meat to add to the bare bones we've seen here.

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